


The City of Towers

by irisbleufic



Category: American Gods (TV), American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Genre: Canon Character of Color, Canon Queer Character of Color, Canon Queer Relationship, Collaboration, Female Character of Color, Illustrated, M/M, Muslim Character, POV Character of Color, Queer Muslim Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-09-01
Updated: 2005-09-01
Packaged: 2017-12-30 17:13:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1021282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irisbleufic/pseuds/irisbleufic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein there are wishes, waits, and journeys.</p><p>
  <span class="small">[Based on the section of <i>American Gods</i> subtitled SOMEWHERE IN AMERICA; falls on p. 141 UK Paperback Edition / p. 181 US Paperback Edition]</span>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The City of Towers

**Author's Note:**

> Illustrated by LinnPuzzle
> 
> (Originally posted to LJ in September of 2005.)

  
  
  
New York does not scare Salim as much as it did before. He has gotten used to the black people, and the Jews, and all of the other shapes and sizes of people that ride in his cab. The crowds do not bother him as much, either, as he spends most of his time safely behind the wheel, and there is the Plexiglas barrier between him and his passengers. The crowds of cars— _traffic_ , a word of which he has become fond—protect him somehow, a current of lights and colors cutting through a fathomless sea.  
  
Sometimes, on his rare days off, Salim goes down to the shore, or takes the ferry. He still misses Oman, which he is sure will never change. The salty air reminds him of Muscat, of dazzling white buildings and skies the clear, bright blue of sapphires. Often, he thinks of his sister, and wonders when her next letter will arrive. It is July, and the weather has become hot, but it is nothing in comparison to the heat that he is used to. Salim wonders if, in another year, he will have forgotten what Oman is like.  
  
Fuad was not pleased when Salim finally wrote a letter to Sabirah in January, nearly a month after he vanished (or tried to vanish). With Sabirah's reply came a second piece of paper, this one in an ugly, angry hand, chastising Salim for his thoughtless actions. Surely Salim could have come back to Oman and returned the sample case in person. Surely he should have known that the order receipt inside the sample case, as staggeringly large a sum as it claimed, would have earned him _tremendous_ honor within the family, and the business, and with the Sultanate of Oman.  
  
Salim crumpled Fuad's letter and kept Sabirah's. In the morning, he wrote his reply, saying that New York was a strange, confusing place, but that his new job was very easy and, no disrespect to her husband, much easier for him to handle than working for Fuad. He says that he is glad the sample case made it back safely, even though he was not the one who left it on Fuad's doorstep or took the healthy order tucked inside it.  
  
Even after so many months, nighttime is still the worst. Salim's dreams are of sand and fire, of distant lands in the desert that he has never seen, except in his grandmother's stories. Salim's grandmother died in his eleventh year, so his memories of her are hazy at best, but what he remembers clearly are her stories, the story of the ifrit, or the marid, or whatever it was that she had seen.  
  
Sabirah, possessed of immaculate recollection, had always remembered her better.  
  
As usual, Salim wakes drenched in sweat, in a blind panic as he reaches through the mess of tangled blankets and finds himself alone in the bed, in the stuffy single room. The ifrit had not been lying about his accommodations: they are modest at best and shabby at worst, and it has taken Salim a number of months to clean and redecorate to his liking. He left the walls bare, but he was able to save enough in the first few months to replace the battered table and chairs. He also managed to buy an overstuffed armchair secondhand, with which he is very pleased. In the evening, before bed, or sometimes in the afternoon or early hours of morning, Salim sits in the chair, rubbing his eyes, and reads his Qur'an.  
  
At first, the Arabs in New York scared Salim as much any other people. He knows that he is different, and that they would look down on him if they knew. Over time, his fear has decreased, because the best solution to such a problem is not to be noticed. Only the ifrit had ever noticed him, and only the ifrit had mattered.  
  
His dreams are not just of sand and fire. Often, he dreams of the ruins in the desert, Ubar, the Lost City of Towers. One night, he opened his eyes and found himself inside a tent of rich, billowing red, watching fires and torches flicker through the gently rippling walls. Then he had turned, and found that he was not alone. It is much the same this time.

  

  
  
Furiously, Salim wipes away his tears and struggles out of the bedclothes.  
  
That day, as it turns out, is a busy one. Much to his surprise, he has acquired a number of regular clients, which Salim had not realized ever happened to taxi drivers. Some of them are Arabs, and some of them are blacks, and some of them are Jews. Some of them are even Americans, and he realizes that Brooklyn is home to more kinds of people than he will ever be able to name. After he drives Mr. Hernandez, who lives three blocks away, to his favorite market, he is waved down by a young woman whose face he vaguely recognizes from what feels like a long time ago.  
  
"You look familiar," she says, smiling at Salim in the rearview mirror. "I think I've seen you before. Downtown someplace, Manhattan."  
  
"It is possible," Salim replies politely. He asks her where she is going.  
  
"Manhattan, actually," says the young woman, blushing. "46th Street."  
  
Salim nods and begins to drive, but he is not thinking of where he is going. He knows where he is going; ever since learning the streets and avenues, it has never been a problem. He is thinking of 46th Street and the Paramount Hotel, and his old room on the fifth floor.  
  
The young woman does not speak to him further, for which Salim is grateful. When they reach 46th Street, she waves indistinctly at the curb and asks to be let off _there_. Salim nods and pulls over, and tells her what she owes. She hands him a twenty.  
  
"Keep the change," she says, her smile sadder than before. "You could use it."  
  
"You are very kind," says Salim, but the girl is already gone, hurrying up the sidewalk in high heels and shading her eyes from the glare of the sun. Fleetingly, he thinks that he ought to have offered her his sunglasses. He has no reason to hide his eyes.  
  
When Salim returns home after midnight, there is a letter from Sabirah waiting in his box. Turning the fan up as high as possible, Salim wrestles the letter out of its airmail envelope and scans her familiar calligraphy. She misses him, she says, as usual, and mentions that their mother wanted to know if he was well. Salim pauses and sets the letter on the table, struggling to control the stinging in his eyes, and picks it up again only after he has fetched a bottle of cola from his small refrigerator. Sabirah tells him that it has been eight months now since he should have returned ( _It is August already_ , he thinks), and that he should consider saving enough money to return to Oman. She says that Fuad has promised not to be harsh on him.  
  
Salim shakes his head, carefully dabbing away the tears that have smudged his sister's handwriting. He does not have enough money yet, and without money, he cannot grant wishes, not even for Sabirah. He writes his response with shaking fingers and says, _Be patient, beloved, for our mother called you Patience. I send her my love._  
  
Later, after he has read his Qur'an, Salim stands at his tiny window and stares out at the endless lights and rooftops. Dimly, and somewhat guiltily, he realizes that he has neglected his prayers for some days now. Sabirah and his mother would be ashamed, or perhaps, by now, they would say nothing at all. Cursing his tears, Salim goes to bed.  
  
Just before sleep finds him, through his window, he glimpses a falling star, and notices that it is close. He wonders if an angel threw it. He wonders if there are jinn nearby.  
  
It is many days before he thinks of the falling star again. The weather has turned hotter than it was in July, nearly as hot as he remembers Oman. When evening comes, it lets up only a little, and the air that drifts in through the open windows of his cab is muggy and sluggish. After three separate passengers in a single hour, he knows that it will be a busy night. Even though the sun has gone down, Salim leaves his sunglasses on.  
  
They do not keep him from seeing another star fall, this time over Broadway. His heart racing, Salim reasons that it would not be unprofitable to head in that direction. The evening shows will be letting out soon, and theater-goers are always in need of cabs.  
  
The traffic is worse than usual, but Salim is patient. He bides his time listening to the radio, which plays some songs that he recognizes and some that he does not. He knows that his English has gotten better, because he understands almost everything that is sung, even if the singer has a strange way of saying particular words. He taps the steering wheel, waiting for the traffic light to turn green. Behind him, someone honks impatiently. Unconcerned, Salim taps the steering wheel, eyes fixed straight ahead.  
  
In front of the nearest theater, a dark-skinned man waves at him. Automatically, Salim pulls up to the curb. He waits until the man has gotten into the back of the cab, and then half turns, asking the man where he is going on this fine evening.  
  
"Home," says the man in heavily accented English. "I am near Brooklyn."  
  
"I am from Brooklyn also," Salim replies warmly, pulling back into traffic as soon as there is an opening. "What street do you live on, my friend?"  
  
"I do not have an address," says the man, curtly, leaning heavily against the door. "You should know that. Just drive." This, he says in Arabic.  
  
Salim is startled by his sharp, nervous tone, and wonders why he should know. "Very well. I will take you as far as you need to go."  
  
"It is not far," replies the man, less harshly this time. "But I do not have much money."  
  
"That is no matter," Salim tells him, making sure his turn signal is on. "I can afford a favor once in a while. Forgive me, but you seem very nervous, as if you need it." Much to Salim's surprise, most of his passengers over time have been able to pay their fares without complaint. He thinks of the ifrit's stories and pities the ifrit's bad luck.  
  
After a time, the man says, "Brother, when did you become so kind?"  
  
Salim frowns, glancing up at the rearview mirror, and the words are almost out of his mouth before he closes it again, shaking with fear. The man is wearing sunglasses, and the light through the window is hitting them just right, accenting the reddish glow coming from behind the lenses. Salim wants ask the ifrit—or is it a marid?—what it wants, but he remains silent, driving ever so slightly faster. Brooklyn is getting close.  
  
"By Allah, forgive me," says the jinn, unexpectedly. "You are not who I took you for."  
  
"No," Salim says tautly. "I am not, though I met him once."  
  
"You men would do well not to be so familiar," cautions the jinn, scratching his beard, more curious than threatening. "You knew I would be here."  
  
"Yes," Salim admits. "I saw the star."  
  
"Those damned creatures," mutters the jinn, "are bored these days."  
  
"Do you mean the angels?" Salim asks, realizing he is almost to his own street.  
  
"Who else?"  
  
Shakily, Salim nods. It is one thing to hear rumors of jinn, and another entirely to meet one. In much the same way, it is one thing to hear rumors of angels, and another to know that one has actually seen a star thrown by an angel. Salim turns the wheel, shivering.  
  
"He was smart to leave," says the jinn, bitterly. "He just missed one storm, and he is fortunate to be missing another."  
  
Salim frowns, uncertain of whether he ought to ask what the jinn means. "Is your stop soon?"  
  
"Soon," says the jinn, "but not yet. You should worry about this storm, you and all mortals. It is coming, and it is coming fast."  
  
"I will keep that in mind," says Salim, half afraid and half pitying. He remembers the ifrit telling him that there were not many jinn in New York, and it occurs to him that the jinn must be lonely creatures indeed. With a surge of hope, he says, "My apartment is very close."  
  
"We will stop here, I think," says the jinn, pointing to a nearby street lamp.  
  
The jinn pays Salim two dollars less than he is owed, but Salim thanks him and bids him good evening. He stays parked at the curb for a long time, watching as the jinn vanishes into the thickly falling dusk. The heat seems worse than before, and he did not even see the jinn's eyes.  
  
That night, Salim dreams of Ubar, of the tent and of the torches. He dreams of the ifrit's burning eyes, and he wakes, shouting, with the memory of the ifrit's mouth wet on his skin. Outside his window, a single star glitters brightly in the dark, fixed and still.  
  
When September arrives, Salim is pleased to find that he has been profitable since his meeting with the jinn. His company is pleased, too, and gives him a small bonus. He protests, saying that he has not even been on the payroll for a year—and stops himself, horrified. The secretary gives him an odd look, and then smiles, as if this poor driver's confusion is nothing more than the product of overworked exhaustion.  
  
"Don't be silly, Mr. Irem," she says, handing him the envelope. "Ten years must fly when you do that much driving."  
  
"Yes," agrees Salim. "Thank you," he adds, and hurries out.  
  
Early on Tuesday, a call from a passenger on his own block takes him out to Staten Island. The man thanks him when they pull up in front of a small, modest house (his grandchildren's, he says proudly) and pays the fare in full. Salim waits until the man is safely inside before turning his key in the ignition. He has not turned on the radio, and suddenly, the silence makes him aware that he is alone. The presses the button once, hard, and nothing happens. A second time, there is only static. Salim curses, flipping the turn signal as he turns a corner. He does not look forward to getting it fixed.  
  
Ten minutes later, at the bridge, Salim finds that the usual, comforting flow of traffic is caught in a noisy gridlock. Irritated, Salim puts his cab in park. There is no use wasting gas. There must have been an accident on the other side.  
  
Only when half an hour stretches into an hour does he think to look inside the other cars, or roll down his window to ask the driver next to him what is going on, or to look straight ahead at the cloud of smoke that is spilling over the city.  
  
There is nothing that Salim can do but watch.  
  
It is evening before Salim is able to make his way home, and he knows that he is more fortunate than the many drivers who do not know the shortcuts and will be stuck long into the night. Until the early hours of morning, Salim watches every news channel that he can pick up on his small, battered black and white television. He does not sleep, not even when his eyes refuse to stay open. He does not leave his apartment, telling himself that there is no need for cabs at the moment, and maybe there will not be for a week.  
  
By evening, Salim is exhausted and frightened. He turns off the television and collapses on his bed, and his sleep, for now, is filled with a thick and smoke-colored darkness.  
  
Salim waits two days before leaving his apartment. He has run out of food and cola, and he has not eaten much even so. He has been watching the news religiously—a very American word, he finds—and begun saying his prayers again. His Qur'an has taken up a place on the pillow beside him, and he has turned the television to face the bed.  
  
Outside, the heat is stifling and the silence is deafening. People talk, when they talk at all, in half-hushed voices, and although he does not stop to join them, he listens. He has the uncomfortable feeling that he is being watched. He wants to tell Mr. Hernandez that he is just as frightened as everyone else. Only a few people meet his eyes and smile on his way home. One of them is the young woman that he left on 46th Street, and she looks as if she has been crying. He wonders if she has lost someone, or if she is simply afraid.  
  
On Friday, Salim returns to work. Much of the city is inaccessible, but he still counts himself more fortunate than most. He finds business better than he would have expected, but it is probably because many people have been stranded at the homes of friends or relatives. He does not speak much with his passengers, not even with the ones he knows.  
  
On Saturday, he takes a young man just a few blocks, and the young man tells him, slamming the cab door, that they're going to pay for this, every last one of them. Salim drives away, trembling, realizing that the young man had not needed to go anywhere.  
  
After a month, the news reports do not so much change as expand, and Salim realizes that Mr. Hernandez is not the only regular that he has lost. Sabirah's new letter is full of grief: she does not have Salim's telephone number, she does not even know if he is alive. Salim does not have a telephone, and he does not have Fuad's number anymore, so he writes, his tears smudging his handwriting on the dingy lined paper. Two weeks later, another letter from Sabirah arrives via Global Express. She is overjoyed to know that he is safe, but still fearful. She asks him if he will return home as soon as it is easier to travel.  
  
That night, Salim weeps until he is empty, and his dreams flicker with terror.  
  
October is a slow month. The heat has lifted, and the city is navigable again. Business is not as slow as Salim had feared it would become, but he knows that he is at least partly responsible for that. He has taken to driving through parts of the city where he has learned that people are not likely to be suspicious. He notices American flags in many shop windows that never had them before, and signs, and ribbons.  
  
Salim does not watch the news anymore. In the evenings, or mornings, or afternoons, whenever he has free time, he reads from the Qur'an and answers Sabirah's persistent letters. At night, when the stars are clear and stark, he wonders if the jinn is all right.  
  
One morning, after Halloween (Salim locked his door and turned out his lights), he looks at himself in the bathroom mirror. He looks thinner, somehow, and older. He shaves carefully, just as he has always done. He needs a haircut, badly. Sabirah would not recognize him. He wonders if the rest of his family would, or if the ifrit would.  
  
That night, he dreams of the desert for the first time in months. The sky is smoke and fire, threatening, and he is running barefoot across the sand, which scorches his city-softened soles. In the distance, Ubar towers above him, its glass-and-flame spires twisting into heaven. A single falling star flares behind it, and then vanishes. Salim runs faster, but it is no use. The sandstorm is full of flames, and the whirlwind surrounds him.  
  
He wakes, dry-mouthed, gasping, and knows that the jinn had been right.  
  
Salim has never made travel plans before, besides the plans that Fuad's company made for him, which were placed in his hands tidy and ready to go. A single visit to a travel agent is enough to tell him that he cannot afford a one-way ticket back to Oman, much less a round-trip one. Tight-lipped, the middle-aged woman looks at him as if she pities him.  
  
"You might be able to afford a flight in August next year, if you can save as much as you're telling me," she says, firmly. Her eyes are hard, but her voice is not unkind. "We expect airfares to remain low for…quite a while."  
  
"I am not afraid to fly," Salim says, earnestly. It is the truth. He has little to lose.  
  
"God bless you, then," says the travel agent, and tells him to have a good day.  
  
He wants to return the words in words of his own, but he thanks her and leaves in silence.  
  
In his next letter, he tells Sabirah that he hopes to return to Oman in ten months' time. Her response is urgent, almost angry: can he not return sooner, and what is keeping him? Money, he replies, honestly, and sends their mother, and even Fuad, his love.  
  
November is a bleak month, cold, and Salim bundles into the same coat that he relied upon when he first arrived in December the year before. His regulars, both old and new, are especially generous, and while things have not gotten better, they have not gotten worse. The incident with the threatening young man seems distant in his memory, and every so often, his thoughts turn to the unidentified jinn, and, of course, to the ifrit. He worries more for the ifrit, because he has heard some people saying that the bombings will not stay in Afghanistan. He says that he hopes that it is not true, and drives off.  
  
Through the holidays, Salim's dreams are quiet. What fragments he can remember consist of sand and sky, flames and stars. He cannot find the tents, and he cannot find the ifrit.  
  
Just after the New Year, Salim comes down with a violent, hacking cough. It reminds him of the dreams, of the way he coughs when there is the illusion of sand in his lungs. Now, when he wakes coughing in his cold apartment, he knows that it is not actually sand. After a week, his head is pounding and driving has become difficult. When the young woman—Sandra, she told him, an easy and ironic name to remember—from 46th Street tells him that he ought to visit a doctor, he thinks about it for a few seconds.  
  
"Would zinc help," he asks, "or Vitamin C?"  
  
Sandra laughs, and then pats his shoulder through his open window, snow catching on her cheeks. "Not what you've got," she says, and tells him something he has never heard of.  
  
Two days later, the doctor tells him the same thing: it's bronchitis, and he had better consider taking a couple of weeks off. A couple of weeks, Salim thinks, dejected, as he hacks into his cupped hands and trudges through the slush back to his cab. It will set him behind, because he will have to use some of his savings to pay that month's rent.  
  
Salim finds that once he has gone to bed and slept a while, full of the drugs that the doctor prescribed, it is difficult to get up again. His dreams return, more vividly than before. He dreams of walking amidst the tents and peering inside each one, finding them all empty except for piles of ashes that blow away whenever the desert wind sweeps past him.  
  
At the end of the first week, he finds that the coughing is not as bad as it was, but that his head still pounds unless he remembers to take his antibiotics and painkillers.  
  
In the middle of the second week, there is a knock on his door. He pulls on his hooded sweatshirt and, carefully, gets up. His legs feel weak, like the jelly he puts on bagels.  
  
Mr. Hernandez is standing on his porch, shivering in the snow, holding a paper bag.  
  
"This neighbor of yours, he tells me that you are sick," he says, gruffly.  
  
"Yes," says Salim, unsure of which neighbor Mr. Hernandez is talking about. "I have not been well. I have had bronchitis."  
  
"Oh, that is _very_ bad," says Mr. Hernandez, looking suddenly much less cold. "We catch things easy, if we are not used to snow," he says authoritatively, nodding.  
  
"You should visit your daughter in Venezuela," Salim tells him, smiling.  
  
"My daughter is here," says Mr. Hernandez, gruff again. "And she sends you this." He pushes the bag at Salim as if he is impatient to get rid of it. "She walks in the snow, this morning, to Paolo's store. Here."  
  
Salim accepts the bag, and he feels the familiar stinging in his eyes.  
  
"Tell your daughter that I am very grateful," he says.  
  
Mr. Hernandez waves his hands impatiently, and then sticks them in his pockets.  
  
"It is nothing," he says, and turns to leave.  
  
Salim calls after him, weakly.  
  
"Mr. Hernandez, which of my neighbors?"  
  
From the sidewalk, Mr. Hernandez turns, squinting through the snow.  
  
"This fellow, he wears sunglasses," he calls, shrugging, and trudges on.  
  
Salim locks his door, and then goes to put away the groceries. His eyes are full of tears, and he wonders if the strange jinn knew his ifrit. He wonders if he will ever see either of them again.  
  
In March, Salim returns to work. He is shocked to learn that his regulars have missed him, and, over the next month, they tip him so well that, when he counts his money, he finds that he is not behind at all. In fact, he has saved more than he had thought. Still, it is not quite enough for a plane ticket. He tells Sabirah that some people in America have kinder hearts than some people he knows in Oman. _Of course_ , she writes back. _People everywhere are people. When will you come home?_  
  
_When summer is done_ , he writes back, and seals the letter, smiling for the first time in weeks.  
  
During the days that follow, Salim visits the travel agent again, asking her what papers he will need for his trip. A passport first and foremost: he knows this, and he bites his lip and does not say that his has been stolen. He searched the ifrit's apartment shortly after his arrival there, but found no such document. He wonders how the ifrit entered the United States, and he wonders how he is supposed to obtain another passport.  
  
"You haven't lost it, have you? You'll have to write to have it replaced. Do you know the address for the Omani consulate? I could get it for you."  
  
"No, thank you," says Salim, politely. "I am fine."  
  
Late spring passes with a sense of uneasy certainty. By May, Salim knows that he can afford a one-way ticket, but he still has not solved the problem of a passport. He has searched the ifrit's apartment from top to bottom a dozen times, and he has found nothing. His only documents remain the driver's license, the taxi permit, and a green card that he had found clipped to the small refrigerator, along with some other official papers that had been difficult to decipher. He had not thought to use the credit card, and is afraid of what might happen if he does. The ifrit seemed to have citizenship, but no passport.  
  
Sandra shows up on his doorstep late one evening, and it is the first time he has seen her since his illness. He is not certain how she has discovered his exact address, but he supposes that it must not be that difficult to follow a cab to its final stop. She is not dressed the way that Salim is used to seeing her. She is in jeans, and her hair is pulled back at the nape of her neck. In her pale blue t-shirt, she looks younger than she is.  
  
"I never came to see how you were," she explains hastily. "That was mean of me. It looks like you're feeling much better now. Winter here can be nasty if you don't watch out. I should've warned you. I should've—"  
  
After he quiets her and asks her inside, he offers her some cola and asks her how she knows he had been very sick. She tells him that the day after you tell somebody to go see a doctor and you don't see him driving around for a month, you start to worry. She glances around his apartment curiously with eyes shade darker than her shirt. She is lovely, Salim thinks, and that is all. They talk for a couple of hours, and before she leaves, she nods at the travel brochures on Salim's small table and asks where he's going.  
  
"Home," Salim explains, walking her outside. "To Oman. I have some people to see."  
  
"Your family, I'll bet," Sandra says, sticking her hands in her pockets, staring at the sidewalk. "I'm sure they miss you."  
  
"My sister does. She writes to me often."  
  
Sandra nods, still staring at the sidewalk. There is something heartbreaking in the way she is looking at her feet, and Salim wonders what has happened to _her_ since last they spoke.  
  
"You are…not going to 46th Street today? I could take you," Salim offers.  
  
"No," Sandra says, smiling a sad sort of smile that Salim knows very well. "Not anymore." Abruptly, she brightens and looks at him as if whatever sorrow she had was never there. "I just thought of something," she said. "Oman, isn't that where they found that city a few years ago, or five? I don't know anymore, but I'm sure I read it in National Geographic or someplace like that. It was in the desert."  
  
"Yes," says Salim, walking with her as far as the end of the block. _And I am going there_.  
  
In the weeks that follow, Salim keeps an eye out for Sandra while he is working, but he does not see her. It is June, and the passport problem is not solving itself, but somehow, Salim is content to read the ifrit's papers, and search the apartment, and visit the right agencies for more paperwork. He can read English now as well as any American.  
  
Sabirah asks in her latest letter if Salim needs any help in returning. That is all she asks, so Salim replies, asking her what she means. Her next letter arrives in early July, explaining that Fuad has reluctantly agreed to make up the difference if Salim cannot afford his return ticket. She reminds him that August is only a month away.  
  
No, Salim tells her, he will be just fine. He has saved the money, and he is merely looking for a good flight. He ignores the parts of her letter that express worry about security being what it is right now, is he sure he will be able to make it out of the country?  
  
That evening, Salim returns home early and stops at the neighborhood deli to pick up some dinner. He finds Mr. Hernandez eating alone at one of the tables outside, and joins him. His daughter has been back in Venezuela for months, he says, and he misses her.  
  
"Do you miss your family also?"  
  
"Yes," answers Salim, "but I am going to see them next month."  
  
"I am collecting postcards," says Mr. Hernandez, with great dignity. "You will send?"  
  
"Yes," Salim promises, realizing that the only other person to whom he would care to send a postcard is Sandra. "I will do that, my friend."  
  
That night, he dreams that he is walking barefoot in the sand, through the desert. The air is calm and cool, and the tents stretch ahead of him in a sea of gently rippling scarlet. He passes through them this time without stopping to peer inside each one, knowing that his business lies within the gates of shimmering, glassy flame that rise before him.  
  
Sandra is standing in front of the gates. Salim knows her only by her tanned, oval face and the color of her eyes, which match the pale, evening blue of her robe, which is also the blue of the desert sky before sunset. Her hair is longer than it should be, cascading over one shoulder in sand-gold waves that reach her waist. She is perfectly still, and she does not blink, not even when Salim stops a few feet away from her and bows.  
  
Salim is sure that Sandra is looking at him, but her eyes are cool and serene, as glassy as the fortress rising behind her, and the fire in them is the fire of stars, a distant, eerie light. She nods without warning, wordless, and, with her arm extended, points with one poised, slender finger to a single, piercing point of light overhead.  
  
Jerking awake, Salim sits up in time to see, through his window, a lone and vivid star in the cloudy blue-black of the city sky before it wavers and falls, leaving a trail of fire.  
  
Before he knows what he is doing, Salim is out of bed and rummaging in a drawer for something to wear. Outside, the night air is chilly, but he ignores it as he slides into the driver's seat of his cab. This time, he is not bound for Broadway, but for the city itself.  
  
Sleep is a habit that does not seem to have caught on in Manhattan. Salim drives aimlessly through the streets, scanning the sidewalks and street corners. Much to his relief, nobody tries to hail him. He keeps his eyes peeled for Sandra, for the jinn, for any familiar face, but the night crowds are filled with ordinary strangers.  
  
At the next corner, he glances out his window, and sees a man in sunglasses.  
  
Without hesitation, Salim pulls out of traffic and up to the curb, earning himself a few honks and impolite gestures. The man in sunglasses is standing beside a ramshackle merchandise stand, and what he is selling are pairs upon pairs of the same sunglasses that he is wearing. _That the ifrit was wearing_ , Salim thinks. _That I am wearing_.  
  
The man watches Salim get out of the cab with curiosity. He does not speak, and it is several seconds before Salim can think of something to say that is not too awkward.  
  
"Do you have a friend who lives in Brooklyn?" asks Salim, in Arabic.  
  
The man in sunglasses nods, tilting his chin enough to reveal the reddish glow of his eyes.  
  
"I had two, but now I am down to one."  
  
"Yes, one of them left me all that he has," Salim says cautiously. "I am grateful to him."  
  
"He was a coward," says the vendor, turning to arrange his cheap plastic wares.  
  
"A good-hearted coward," says Salim, "may peace be upon him."  
  
"I suppose you are looking for him," says the vendor, facing him again, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his oversized coat. "I suppose you are looking for what he took from you. Well, my brother, I am sorry. I cannot give you that. You gave it willingly."  
  
"As long as I am here," Salim says, "I am, as far as you are concerned, him." Salim pauses for a moment, lightheaded, uncertain of how he knows what to say. "Give me what is mine."  
  
"Very well," agrees the vendor, nodding, "but you will owe me something."  
  
"I will do my best to repay you."  
  
"You will keep your friend and her stars away from us."  
  
Salim feels the color drain from his cheeks, but he recovers himself quickly.  
  
"She means you no harm," he says. "She is only trying to help me."  
  
"Nosy creature," mutters the vendor, and opens a creaky drawer in his stand. He rummages through what sounds like marbles and tiny silver bells clinking and rolling this way and that, and finally produces a dusty packet of papers. "If you will not talk to her, then you must give me something else. That is a very nice cab."  
  
Salim feels a stab of regret, but the price is somehow just.  
  
"As you wish," Salim says, and takes the packet. He drops the keys to the cab into the vendor's hand, and then his permit for good measure.  
  
"Good, good," says the vendor, smiling at the keys. "I have always wanted to try this."  
  
Salim takes a different cab home. The driver is a black man whose accent is so thick that Salim can hardly understand him, but he knows his way and drives well, and Salim gives him a tip before getting out and returning to his apartment. He sits down at his table and opens the packet, finding a sheaf of documents inside: a birth certificate, a passport, and other official-looking papers that he does not recognize, but seem important. He knows with a sudden, ecstatic surety that these things will get him through customs.  
  
The next day, his travel agent congratulates him on his successfully booked flight to Oman. She says that one-way tickets are understandable these days, but she does hope he'll come back. New York is a great city, she says. It's full of survivors.  
  
"Perhaps one day, but not soon," Salim says, and, smiling, takes his leave.  
  
Salim's flight is for Saturday, the third of August. His preparations are few, but all of them necessary. He wonders what will happen to the small apartment once he has left it. The vendor did not say anything about wanting Salim's home: just Salim's cab. Still, Salim feels as if it would be proper to leave the place clean and in good order just in case somebody needs it. In America, the jinn seemed to have a use for everything.  
  
Mr. Hernandez is sorry to hear that Salim is truly leaving. He says that his daughter was looking forward to seeing Salim in better health at Christmas. Salim tells him that is very kind of her, and that he will send her a postcard, too, if Mr. Hernandez will give him her address. _Sí_ , agrees the old man, forcefully, and putters across the kitchen. _Sí, sí!_  
  
It is one week until Salim leaves, and he has seen no sign of Sandra. His dreams have been quiet, and his days have been full of doing many of the things that he had never found time to do. He discovers that the view from the top of the Empire State Building as breathtaking as somebody once promised him, though he cannot look down for too long. Curious, he gets cheap tickets for a Broadway show, and, unexpectedly, it moves him.  
  
The next morning, his last morning in New York, he takes a stale half-loaf of bread to the small neighborhood park and sits on a bench. Within minutes, he has attracted a crowd of pigeons and sparrows. He tries to tear the bread in different sizes, but the birds will fly off with anything, even if it is too big for them. The bread goes a long way.  
  
When it is almost gone, and the birds have begun to lose interest, he realizes that someone in a black coat and high heels is sitting next to him. Sandra looks much the way she did on the evening that he first got a glimpse of her nearly two years ago. Her hair is loose.  
  
"You do not look like a desert creature," Salim says, tossing the last bit of crust to a pigeon. "How is it that I did not know?"  
  
"Because my eyes aren't flames, and that's what you look for," she says in Arabic.  
  
"I did not know that angels were women."  
  
"Some of us are," she says, crossing her legs and bouncing one foot indifferently. "You would be amazed at how many of us are still here," she continues, looking at him as steadily as she looked at him in the dream. "Amazed."  
  
"Not now," Salim replies, and wants to laugh.  
  
"You're about to do a dangerous thing," she says, her eyes hardening.  
  
"It is possible," Salim agrees. "I am not a desert creature."  
  
"If you have half a brain, you'll see your sister first," says Sandra, still very much herself.  
  
"I had planned on doing that."  
  
"She thinks you're coming home to stay."  
  
"I am," Salim says, crumpling up the plastic bread bag.  
  
"That's not the way she'll see it," Sandra says gently, and leans over to touch his arm. "Listen, I've had it with this place. I wish I'd found you first. I got into the cab after you that night and gave your friend a _royal_ talking-to. I warned him about getting mixed up with a mortal. He said he was just going to get what he wanted. That was all."  
  
Very slowly, Salim gets up and walks to the nearest trashcan. He throws away the bag, deliberately, and, turning again, gives Sandra a long, steady look.  
  
"I had imagined your kind to be more like the jinn," he says, "and the jinn, more like you."  
  
Salim turns his back, then, and walks home, knowing that the angel will not follow.  
  
Before bed, he sets his alarm for five in the morning. His Qur'an is on the bedside table, exactly where he left it. He reads for a while, comforted, and then places it gently back on the table. The next resident may have need of it. Reverently, he turns out the light.

The airport is not as crowded as the day on which Salim first arrived. He is careful to tip the cab driver as generously as he is able. The man, who looks like a Turk and has not said a word the whole time, nods his head in thanks. Salim blesses him, and then takes up his suitcase and gets out of the taxi. He must check in as soon as he can, cautioned his travel agent, because the security lines are bound to be long.  
  
When it is his turn in line, Salim stands still, nervous, as the woman behind the counter pulls up his reservation and checks his identification. She asks him if his luggage has been handled by anyone other than himself. No, he says, it has not. She nods and continues punching keys, and something prints up, which she peels away from its backing and wraps around his suitcase handle. Then she tucks his boarding passes into an airline brochure and tells him his gate number. She hands back his passport – the ifrit's passport – last. Her smile is strained, but it is likely because she is very tired.  
  
The line for security is long, but not as long as the travel agent had made it seem it would be. Salim takes off his coat and his shoes and sticks them in one of the plastic bins, just as he is told, and he is made to go through the metal detectors a second time even though he did not set them off the first time through. As he collects his things on the other side, he sees the man ahead of him—middle-aged, white, American—taken aside by an attendant to be searched. Salim decides that he should not watch, and takes his shoes and coat over to a chair to put them back on. Briefly, he watches his reflection flash in miniature in one shiny spot on his shoe. He will be twenty-six in two months, but looks thirty. He has tried not to think about the weight he has lost, or how Sabirah will fuss.  
  
Once he reaches his gate, Salim has nearly three hours to wait. He buys a magazine that he remembers reading in the waiting room of Pan-Global Imports ( _The New Yorker_ ) and reads it slowly not because it is difficult, but because he chooses.  
  
Across from him, there is a couple with two small children. The girl is sitting in her father's lap, perhaps four years old, with both index fingers stuck in her mouth. Salim feels her curious eyes move over him every so often, and it is difficult to ignore the noise that her older brother is making as he pushes a tiny toy car back and forth in the aisle.  
  
The couple seems nervous, but their children do not. Salim turns the page, wondering how the past year has been for the children in America and in Oman. He wonders how it has been for Muslim children, and he wonders how it has been for Christian children. He wonders how it has been for the Jews, and the blacks, and the Venezuelans.  
  
Before long, they are calling his flight to board.  
  
It takes them six hours to reach London. Salim sleeps for most of the flight, leaning against his open window so that what he sees when he wakes are the clouds outside and the landscape below. He eats a little when brunch is served, but says little when the man next to him tries to strike up a conversation. He is not particularly interested, and he is hoping for dreams. His layover is under two hours, just long enough for him to find a restroom and tidy up. His flight from London to Muscat will be longer than his first.  
  
In the air once more, Salim grows restless and uncertain. He has read his magazine at least twice through, and the middle-aged woman beside him is silent, snoring inside her veil. The old man beside her is awake, and looks somewhat irritated. Salim wonders how long they have been married, and if they have any children. They remind him of his parents.  
  
He is glad that most of the flight is over land, for there is something safer and more reassuring about looking down upon large portions of a continent than upon a single city.  
  
The announcements are given in both Arabic and English. He eats a little when the dinner trays are brought around, then unfolds his airline blanket and decides that he should try to sleep for the last five hours if he can manage it. Beside him, the woman is awake now, and bickering quietly with her husband in Arabic. Salim dozes, comforted.  
  
Salim wakes to an unfamiliar hand on his shoulder. The woman's husband is reaching across her and telling Salim that they have arrived in Muscat. Salim rubs his eyes, pushes off his blanket, and thanks the old man. The old man nods and tells him it is no trouble.  
  
Inside the airport, there is little English to be heard. There were some British passengers on the flight out of London, and possibly a few Americans, but they have faded into the airport crowd. Salim finds a restroom and washes his face in the sink. Despite the rest he has gotten, he feels as if he has not slept in days. It is the middle of the afternoon, and he knows he should have no trouble finding a way to get home. He told Sabirah August, but he did not tell her when. As far as she knows, he is still in America. He decides that he will go to his parents' house rather than Fuad's. From there, he will be able to call her.  
  
Outside the airport, Salim scans the confusion of cars and buses for a taxi. The first thing that he notices is the heat, which, in comparison to the two summers he spent in New York, is overpowering. Private cabs are scarce in Muscat, and more expensive, so his hope is set on one that will take him on a set route with a few other passengers. He remembers walking home with his mother and sister, once, after being let off on an unfamiliar street that ceased to be unfamiliar as soon as they had rounded a corner.  
  
Five minutes pass before Salim spots a cab, and it is an empty one. The driver pulls up beside him, opens the passenger-side window, and leans over.  
  
"You look like you need to be somewhere, sir."  
  
_Sir?_ Salim glances down at himself: his secondhand suit is badly wrinkled by now, and his shoes, shiny when he began his journey, are scuffed. He looks back at the driver.  
  
"Yes, sir," he responds, opening the door and sliding in. "Will you be taking others?"  
  
"No, sir," replies the driver, smiling slightly. "Just you." He is wearing a turban and no sunglasses. His eyes are a rich, shining brown, and his beard is peppered with grey.  
  
Salim tells him the address of his parents' home, and the driver nods, releasing the brakes. They are silent until they are free of the airport, which is some forty miles outside the city itself. Salim realizes that he no longer thinks in kilometers, and marvels at this as much as he marveled at the heat. He tells the driver what is on his mind, and the driver laughs unexpectedly. Salim laughs, too, and realizes he has not laughed in a long time.  
  
"So, you stayed in America for two years," says the driver when he can finally speak.  
  
"Yes," Salim responds, watching the landscape flash by. It is more beautiful than he remembers. He wonders if he'll be able to afford a rental car after he pays this fare.  
  
"I'm glad you are safe, my friend," says the driver, suddenly grave.  
  
"My sister is, too," Salim says, feeling suddenly awkward.  
  
"Your parents will be glad, too."  
  
"I hope they will be."  
  
"They are your parents. They love you."  
  
"I love them," Salim says, feeling his eyes sting, and turns his face to the window.  
  
Until they reach his parents' doorstep, the driver is silent.  
  
"Keep the change," Salim says, handing some bills to the driver. Even the currency feels unfamiliar. "Allah go with you, my friend. Sir."  
  
"And you too, sir," says the driver, nodding to Salim. The smile is in his eyes.  
  
In seconds, he is standing alone outside his parents' house, terrified.  
  
It would be easier to turn around and walk back to the main road and wait for another taxi to come along, Salim thinks. It would be easier to vanish into the desert as soon as possible, to let the birds and beasts of prey pick his bones clean of vain hopes and fragile belief. Still, he sets one foot forward, and the next, and the first all over again. His hand seems to fist of its own accord, and by the time he has knocked, it is too late to run.  
  
Before he can properly take a breath, or even register that the door has opened, there is a flash of dark blue and the sun glinting off delicate gold. His arms are full of something slender and strong beyond all reckoning, and his eyes close to the familiar sensation of Sabirah's arms locking around his neck and her feet pushing off from the ground.  
  
"You can still knock me over," he whispers against her covered hair, staggering, and holds on so tightly as to never let go. Upon his shoulder, Sabirah is weeping.  
  
"…knew you would come here first, you complete _idiot_ …"  
  
"Hush," Salim whispers, struggling to control his tears. "I am here."  
  
"Mother has been worried sick," Sabirah hiccups, finally letting go of him. Her veil has slipped, and she uses the corner of it to dab at her eyes. There are lines in her forehead that Salim does not remember her having at two years his senior. As he looks her over from head to foot, he realizes with shock that she may be pregnant.  
  
"Fuad is very happy," she says, smiling through her tears, readjusting her veil. "See, you're not the only one around here who can have surprises. Come along…"  
  
Before Salim can protest, Sabirah has him by the hand and is leading him inside. The hallway is familiar, and he remembers to kick out of his shoes before proceeding down the tile passage. He realizes, dimly, that Sabirah is as barefoot as ever she was when they were children. Salim's heart constricts painfully: he is to lose as much as he is to gain, it would seem. He swallows tautly at the thought of his unborn niece or nephew.  
  
In the kitchen, there are more tears and even more laughter. His mother is the least familiar sight of all, as he has never seen her smile, or even cry, so freely in her life. She raps him across the back of the head somewhat roughly as she embraces him, and then launches into a string of endearments that makes Sabirah roll her eyes at Salim over their mother's shoulder. Dazed, Salim agrees that he ought to go out on the verandah and see his father. Sabirah says that she will go with him, but their mother gives her a stern look.  
  
Salim's father has had ample warning from the noise inside the house, so it is no surprise to find that he is waiting in one of the chairs with his arms folded and his eyes unreadable. He does not rise when Salim steps outside, but he leans forward, expectant. Salim kneels down at his feet, unthinking, and takes his father's wrinkled hand. He knows that he is not expected to say anything. With his eyes closed, Salim, too, waits.  
  
The slap comes as no surprise. In all truth, he had expected far worse. In its wake, his father's hand is gentle, and through the haze of pain, Salim realizes it is shaking.  
  
"Do not ever think," says his father, voice already broken, "that we wished to see you exiled."  
  
"I did not," Salim whispers, clutching his father's hand tightly, and lets himself go.  
  
After he has slept a while, at Sabirah's insistence, dinner is a much less sober affair. Fuad arrives shortly before the women have prepared the table, and their exchange is a pleasant and polite one, if somewhat strained. Salim apologizes for his behavior, and Fuad tells him that it is, as they say in America, water under the bridge. They both laugh.  
  
That night, as they sit outside sipping kahwa (strong coffee with spices, Salim reflects, would not catch on in America), Salim tells them a much shortened version of his stay in New York. When they ask about September—nearly a year ago now, but it feels like eternity—Salim tells them exactly what he remembers, as it is all he can do. His family is silent.  
  
The room that he shared with Sabirah in childhood has been empty for years, and it is where his mother puts him after Fuad and Sabirah have gone. Salim asks to what good fortune he owed Sabirah's visit, and his mother replies that Sabirah is anxious about the pregnancy and natters her poor old ears off. Salim nods, watching her dust off the bed.  
  
"Now that you have come home," she says, turning down the covers, "I hope that you will consider settling. You heard Fuad, he is willing to give you back your job."  
  
Salim smiles, hoping that she does not notice the sorrow it hides.  
  
"As long as I do not have to return to America," he jokes.  
  
His mother leaves him with a pat on the cheek, saying he is too thin.  
  
Salim sleeps well, though his dreams are a strange and fragmented collection of familiar faces. There is Sabirah, and Sandra, and Mr. Hernandez, and the two strange jinn. They are more memories than dreams, all of them spun in a single, dizzying kaleidoscope.  
  
He sleeps long into the next day, and at noon, it is Sabirah who wakes him.  
  
"Are you bored at home?" asks Salim, rubbing his eyes.  
  
"Yes," she says, frowning at him as if she, too, has noticed his weight loss. "If he is not at work, he is with his friends. If he did not earn enough money to keep our house, I might speak ill of him."  
  
"I would not blame you," Salim replies, yawning.  
  
"Sabirah, do not bother your brother! Come here!"  
  
"She's the same old bat," Sabirah whispers, hopping off the bed, and leaves.  
  
Salim lets his mother force a late breakfast on him, and then says that he would like to go walking for a while. Sabirah says that she will go with him, but one stern glance from their mother (first at her face, next at her belly) puts an end to the notion. Salim leaves the house alone, wearing some of his old clothes, which are too loose. It feels strange not to be wearing blue jeans and an old sweater. He left his sunglasses in New York.  
  
After a while, the heat is overpowering, and he catches the first taxi he can find. It is one of the set routes, and there is already another man in the back. He asks to be taken to the docks, and the driver says he will take Salim as close as he possibly can, but Salim will still have to walk a while longer. The fare, at least, is cheap.  
  
The blue of the ocean is bright and calming, not at all the cold, distant blue of Sandra's eyes or the troubled grey-blue of the Atlantic. Salim holds his shoes in one hand and shuffles through the hot sand, grateful when the breakers finally lap up and wet his feet. There are a number of ships arriving at port, and he tries to imagine what they carry.  
  
When he returns home that evening, Fuad has come to collect Sabirah, and he mentions Salim's old job again. He tells Salim, somewhat impatiently this time, that he is welcome to it, but that he will have to let Fuad know very soon. Fuad's employer will not wait.  
  
Salim realizes, uncomfortably, that his father is looking at him.  
  
"I will need one day to think about it," he says honestly, and thanks Fuad.  
  
Before Sabirah leaves, Salim pulls her outside on the verandah. Her eyes are questioning, a little worried, but Salim pats her shoulders reassuringly. Cautiously, he loosens her veil and looks at her face. She is trying to smile, but it is not working.  
  
"I don't know what to think," she says quietly. "You are still my Salim, but you've changed."  
  
"We have all changed," Salim tells her firmly, holding her up straight. "Promise me that you will smile no matter what happens. Do you understand?"  
  
"Yes," Sabirah says, somewhat desperately, searching Salim's eyes. "Brother, if you would just—"  
  
"Fuad is waiting for you," Salim says, kissing her forehead, "and an old friend is waiting for me."  
  
Sabirah's face darkens, pained.  
  
"Oh, Salim. You _can't_ …"  
  
"Promise me," Salim says again, almost shaking her.  
  
"I promise!" Sabirah cries, softly, her eyes glistening.  
  
"Good," Salim says, and embraces her. "I love you."  
  
"I love you, too, you great fool."  
  
Salim waits until after his parents have finished their evening kahwa and gone to bed. Silently, he changes from his nightwear into a fresh pair of old clothes—all white, he makes sure—and slips into his shoes. His wallet is almost empty, but he slips it in his pocket. He hopes that what it holds will be enough.  
  
In the nighttime city, light spills out from a dozen doorways and streetlamps, crossing his path. He realizes that renting a car at this time of night will not be possible, but cabs are not unheard-of after dark. He purchases a rough canvas tote bag from one vendor, and a small selection of nuts and dried fruits from another. The jug of honey wine, he bargains for, and it is too large to fit in the bag. It is heavy, but it has a handle. From another vendor, Salim buys an embroidered length of cloth and makes a sling for it.  
  
On a street corner, Salim counts what is left of his money. What he needs next is information, but not information that he will have to pay for. He finds a coffee house that is full of smoking men his father's age. He orders some kahwa, and then delays the proprietor as he rummages in both pockets for his wallet.  
  
"Do you remember," he asks, handing the man his coins, "when they found Ubar?"  
  
The man pockets the coins, scratching his beard.  
  
"It must have been nine, ten years ago at least," he says, shrugging. "I have not heard anything since."  
  
"Can people visit the site?" Salim presses, persistent. "Is it very far from here?"  
  
The man laughs, reminding Salim about his coffee with a gesture.  
  
"The desert is never far from here, but you cannot walk to Ubar. It's outside Salalah, you know."  
  
Salalah. In the south, the Empty Quarter. Salim thanked the proprietor, and then sipped his coffee, feeling his insides collapse on themselves. He would have done better to fly to Salalah and skip Muscat altogether, although he had made a promise to Sabirah.  
  
"Sir?" he calls, hoping the man will hear him and turn.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"How long is it to Salalah by bus?"  
  
"Days," answers the proprietor. "Save for a plane ticket, my friend."  
  
"Thank you," Salim says, crestfallen, and finishes his coffee in silence.  
  
Outside, the night has grown calmer, and there is a faint breeze off the ocean. Salim wanders aimlessly, not caring if he loses his way in the darkness. It is his own fault and his own foolishness: legends and rumors are not, in and of themselves, maps.  
  
Under the next streetlamp, Salim notices a parked taxi. He approaches, hopeful, and sees that the turbaned driver is asleep. He wonders if it would be all right to wake the man up. Biting his lip, Salim knocks on the driver's side window. He knows he must return home.  
  
The driver blinks, disoriented, and rubs his eyes furiously. When he notices Salim, he smiles and rolls down the window, fighting off another yawn.  
  
"I don't suppose you want to go back to the airport, sir?"  
  
Salim is, momentarily, stunned, but he returns the driver's smile.  
  
"No, sir," he says, gravely. "Just home again. I am lost."  
  
Eyes narrowed, the driver gives him a reproving look.  
  
"I don't think you are telling the truth," he says, glancing at Salim's bag and sling.  
  
"I was trying to get to Ubar," Salim admits. "I sometimes walk in my sleep."  
  
"Ubar," says the driver, thoughtfully. "The City of Pillars on the old Incense Road. Allah destroyed it, you know. Covered it in sand from foundations to spires. Now, it is Irem, City of the Jinn."  
  
"Yes," Salim says, comforted by the familiar sound of the name. "That is the place."  
  
"Well, get in," says the driver, rubbing his arms vigorously. "We don't have all night."  
  
"Alas," says Salim, prepared for the unpleasant scene he will face on his parents' doorstep, "it would take all night, and a day, and a night, and a day…"  
  
"You young people are very cynical," says the driver, and screeches into the deserted street. "I have not had anybody ask me to take them to Ubar for a very long time."  
  
"It is because we are _both_ too young to remember," says Salim, suddenly very sleepy. He rests his head against the window and dozes, listening to the wine slosh in his jug.  
  
It is the heat that wakes Salim, sun beating hot and relentless through the cab window. He jerks awake, sitting up straight, and realizes that the cab has not stopped moving. A glance straight ahead shows him nothing but dusty, unmarked brown road for miles ahead. Outside his window, there is nothing but a limitless expanse of sand and sky.  
  
"Where have you taken me?" Salim demands, reaching forward to catch the driver's shoulder. Unlike in America, there is no Plexiglas barrier. "What is this?"  
  
"I am taking you," explains the driver, cheerfully, removing Salim's hand from his shoulder, "exactly where you wanted to be taken. Or as close to there as this road can reach, whichever comes first."  
  
Salim collapses back into the seat, panicked. He does not know how long he slept, and he wonders if there was poison in the kahwa he drank the night before in Muscat.  
  
"How long have we been driving?"  
  
" _I_ have been driving," says the driver, importantly, "for forty-nine hours, counting not a single stop. You will not get that kind of service anywhere nowadays."  
  
Salim runs his hand across his forehead, and stares out the window again.  
  
"I do not have enough to pay you," he says, desolate.  
  
"I would not say that," says the driver, briefly glancing over his shoulder. "You are carrying with you some very fine wine."  
  
"There is nothing fine about it," Salim says. "I bought it from a street vendor."  
  
"In the old days, that was where anyone bought anything worth having."  
  
"Very well," agrees Salim, feeling somewhat feverish and slightly manic. "Take me as close to Ubar as you can get, and this wine and all the money I carry are yours."  
  
"That is a fair trade," says the driver, nodding, and fixes his attention back on the road.  
  
Between fits of staring out the window and eating handfuls of nuts and dried fruit, Salim sleeps. He has never been good at sleeping on means of transport, but the sluggishness in his veins has not worn off, and the next time he wakes, the brightness has faded to twilight. The sky overhead is a deep blue-black, and the stars are clearer than he has ever seen them. A glance in the rearview mirror shows him the driver's wide, alert eyes.  
  
"I hope you have slept well," says the driver to Salim, kindly. "You will need your strength for the walk."  
  
"The walk?"  
  
"Yes," says the driver, with a sober nod. "When the road ends, you will have to walk."  
  
"When does the road end?" Salim asks uncertainly.  
  
"Here," says the driver, and hits the brakes, sending Salim crashing into the back of the driver's seat. "I hope you have saved that wine."  
  
"I have," Salim reassures him, rubbing his bruised arm. He reaches across the seat and picks up the jug, carefully unknotting the sling. He hands it to the driver shakily.  
  
Without hesitation, the driver uncorks the jug, inhaling long and slow.  
  
" _Mmm_ ," he says, finally. "Very, very fine."  
  
With that, he takes a deep drink, and then offers the jug to Salim.  
  
"One for the road," says the driver in English.  
  
"Thank you," Salim replies, and drinks. The wine is thick, warm, and sweet. He hands back the jug, takes up his bag, and opens his door. He hesitates for a moment, frowning.  
  
"No, I will not have goodbyes," says the driver, impatiently, waving his hand. "Go. Be well."  
  
"No," Salim reassures him, stretching as he steps out of the cab. "It is not that. If it would not be impolite to ask—"  
  
Over his shoulder, the driver grins at Salim.  
  
"I gave up throwing stars a long time ago. My aim was never good."  
  
Salim nods and closes the door. The driver waves and screeches off, making a wide, improbable U-turn through the sand and back onto the dead-end road, which, Salim can now see, was never so much a road as a hard-beaten path in the parched earth.  
  
Ahead of him, there is a gently sloping expanse of sand-colored nothingness.  
  
It is difficult progress. After an hour, Salim abandons his shoes, because they keep filling, uselessly, with sand and slowing him down. At first, the sand scorched his feet, but now, they feel numb, wearily accustomed. The breeze blows sand into his eyes and mouth, and he finds it necessary to fashion a makeshift headdress of the former wine-sling. Trudging along, sweating profusely, he wonders how ridiculous he must look.  
  
Judging by the sun's angle, it is past noon when Salim stops to eat some more of his limited provisions. He assumes—or, rather, feels—that walking straight ahead, in the direction the road would have continued, is his intended course. He realizes, though, that it would be all too easy to veer off course and end up traveling in the wrong direction. Glances back over his shoulder are of no use, because the sand behind him has already covered his tracks. Weary and thirsty, he rises and walks on.  
  
As the sun sinks lower in the sky, the heat becomes more bearable, but not by much. He is aware that it must be well over a hundred degrees by American reckoning, and most of his attempts to shake out his head-covering only seem to collect more sand in it. He can scarcely believe his good fortune when a rock formation appears over the next rise, an island of a mound covered in scrubby vegetation. He climbs it, but the view from the top is not very impressive. Disappointed, he sits down and eats the last of the nuts. To his relief, the sky is turning fast from pale, cloud-washed blue to a dark, shadowy indigo.  
  
When Salim rises half an hour later, dusting off his hands, the first stars are beginning to appear. He feels vaguely troubled, for it seems to him as if such a landmark as this, however insignificant, must have meant something to travelers long ago. Perhaps it was once a great mountain, or in the very least a hill, instead of a tiny, worn-away mound offering a vantage point of five feet above the sand. Perhaps that is the catch: perhaps it extends _downward_ , Salim thinks, and perhaps he is standing at the summit.  
  
Dimly, Salim realizes that darkness has fallen thickly around him, and that the lights closest to the horizon are not stars, but the distant flickering of fires.  
  
He jogs down the side of the mound, breathless, almost tripping in his haste. Even from ground level, the flickering lights are perfectly visible, and as he runs, they grow larger and closer. He slows to a halt, catching his breath, and realizes with awed fear that what he is seeing is not a mirage. There are not only fires: now, he can see the outlines of tents and the dim, reddish glow that they give off when the firelight hits them.  
  
Speechless, Salim breaks into a run, but a moment later he is struck still with amazement. He stands frozen, helpless, and watches a blaze of glittering white rain down from overhead. The tents will burn, he thinks, horrified, but before the stars can even reach the ground, a dozen or more seem to bounce off of the empty air, wheeling like fireworks in a myriad directions, pale blue sparks mingling with fearsome white.  
  
The spires of the city seem to pierce the very sky, glassy and flickering from within.  
  
Salim thinks that maybe he is, indeed, the sleepwalker that he claimed to be. Whether it is true or not, each new step feels like one taken through high grass, or deep water, and when he passes the first tent, its nearness registers as spine-tingling shock. The flap of the tent, whipped out by the wind, which has grown stronger, ripples wide and reveals that the interior is not empty. In the dimness, a bright pair of eyes watches him. He passes others, too, and even sees a few of the people—he is not sure what else he should call them, for they _look_ like men—sitting by their fires, all of them watching.  
  
He is so close to the city gates that, looking up, the city itself seems is a towering fortress. He can see that the city seems to be made of sand, or of stone, or of glass, all shimmering: he has never seen such a material, and much though he wants to, he is afraid to touch it. The doors in front of him are made of gold and precious stones like the doors in his dreams, but he had not noticed before what the walls themselves were made of.  
  
In front of Salim, the doors remain closed. Hesitantly, he grips one heavy handle with both hands, tries to lift it, and finds that he cannot. Either the metal is too heavy, or his body is too weak from walking.

Salim sits down in the sand, wanting to close his eyes nearly as much as he wants to touch the sacred city walls. If he could just rest…  
  
One of the watchers has drawn close behind him, so close that he can feel its breath, heat like ashes and smoke, and when he breathes in, it surrounds him, burning the back of his throat.  
  
"This is why you wished to return?" Salim asks in a whisper, not daring to turn.  
  
"Yes," comes the answer in a voice as familiar as he expected it would be.

The watcher shifts its position behind him, half crawling and half sliding, and draws up beside Salim on hands and knees.

Out of the corner of his eye, Salim can tell that the ifrit's robe is red.  
  
"Is this why you granted _my_ wish? So that you might have your own?"  
  
The ifrit shifts beside him, perhaps shrugging.  
  
"Is it not as I told you?" he asks Salim. "Ubar is very beautiful. Even when the sands came, it was very beautiful. The prophet's curse was, in its way, a blessing."  
  
"Ibrahim bin Irem," says Salim, quietly.

Weakly, he skims his hand across the sand and closes the space between them, seeking the ifrit's fingers. His vision seems shadowed, distorted.

The ifrit finds Salim's hand and takes it, squeezing gently.  
  
"That is not my name."  
  
"It is the one you left me with."  
  
"You did not leave me with so much as that."  
  
"My name," Salim tells the ifrit, twining their fingers and noticing how grains of sand have gotten stuck in between, "is surely worth its weight in yours."  
  
"You, my beloved," says the ifrit, finally shifting so that they are face to face, "have learned to bargain." His eyes, uncovered, are the same scarlet flames as before.  
  
Salim grasps for the ifrit's other hand, finding his fingers weaker than before.  
  
"I would not have survived if I had not," he whispers, and feels tears on his face.  
  
The ifrit, as sharp-featured and beautiful as the city itself, leans forward.

He kisses Salim's eyes, one after the other, and whispers the words that will open the doors.

 


End file.
